


all of the lights

by cuspAbandon (nilchance)



Series: moral victories [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Eye Trauma, F/M, Post-Game AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilchance/pseuds/cuspAbandon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I fix my mistakes.” Terezi shows Dave her teeth. “Are you here to stop me?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	all of the lights

Dave finds Terezi on the roof. It’s midday, the sizzle of sunlight off the metal edges of the city so bright he can feel the melanoma brewing. He’s not used to it anymore; three years on a meteor made him soft. All he wants to do is stand in his underwear in front of the freezer. Bro would shit a kitten.

She’s stretched out on the hot cement, legs folded at the ankle. Her glasses are neatly folded beside her. She looks up at the sun, unwavering, even though there are streak of teal on her face where her eyes watered.

So Dave goes to sit beside her. The cement tries to sear his ass through his jeans. Stick a brand on that prime buttock. Property of Houston, Texas, ain’t letting this bitch wander off again.

“Sup,” he says. “Got tired of the see party?”

“I fix my mistakes.” Terezi shows him her teeth. “Are you here to stop me?”

“Yeah, I figured we’d have a whole intervention, but you ruined the surprise so I guess I’ll just give you some water instead. I mean, whatever, Teez, I don’t think I could ever stop you from doing anything. You’d just stab yourself in the eyes with scissors.”

“This is true! You have grown wise, coolkid.” Terezi latches her hand onto his knee and squeezes painfully. “Do we have scissors?”

“Never looked. Shit, when I need to cut whatever I just gnaw at it like a good primate. I guess in a pinch you could rub your knees together and cut it that way. Might start a fire, though.”

“Would these be ill fires?”

“Fuck yes. These fires are so sick they’re in quarantine. The CDC is all bustling around with serious expressions behind their faceshields. The littlest fire coughs picturesquely into its hand while distressed parent fires look on. Fires so bacterial that they’re about to go airborne, and they’ll call it _Hot Zone_. Wait, nobody’d watch a movie with that stupid title. They’d call it, _Groin Rash_.”

“Dave,” Terezi says. “Are we friends?”

Dave looks over at her. Despite his shades, the light digs its fingers into his eyes. By the time he goes inside, he’ll have a riot of a headache. He scoots closer to her. 

“Yeah,” he says. “We’re friends. I know it’s a troll disease or whatever, but I infected you with that bitch. You’re not getting out of it that easy. We are eternal bros.”

“I was brought low. I scraped the gutter with juggalo trash and spilled Faygo.” Terezi swallows, her throat clicking. Sudden loathing radiates off her. “I didn’t even kill him.”

“I can’t argue with any of that.”

She snorts, but the truth seems to scrape some darkness away. She twists her wrist so that hand rests, palm up, on Dave’s thigh. There are still spores of bruises around her wrist in the shape of Gamzee’s fingers.

Dave brought out a couple markers as an olive branch. He takes one out now, an eye-searing orange, and uncaps it. In her palm, he draws a Hella Jeff version of her face. Her fingers twitch but the dagger claws don’t maul him. She smiles. 

Continuing to her wrist, Dave says, “I think you could’ve killed him if I hadn’t swooped in. All, damn girl, what’s a dragon like you doing in a lava pit like this?”

“It was very heroic. You denied me justice.”

“Sorry.”

“Lies.”

“You got me.” Dave pauses in the middle of giving sketch-Terezi a dragon hood. “I’m not sorry I kept you from dying. I’m sorry you didn’t get to tear a chunk off, though. Beat him with his own codpiece a little.”

“Jab his club in his eye.”

They share a dreamy moment imagining gory juggalo beatdown. Terezi’s vicious smile does things to him, still, a jolt of Darwin Award stupidity sinking right to his dick.

Dave says, “Karkat ended him pretty goddamn bloody.”

Terezi makes a troll sound, pleased rumble and protective _hrrrst_. And yeah, Dave gets what she’s putting down. Nobody misses Gamzee, but Karkat is… not okay, lately.

Funny how he understands troll purrs, trills and snarls, but it’s beyond him to get humans anymore. He’s pretty sure the guy at the 7-11 thinks he’s a serial killer of the ‘it’s always the quiet ones’ variety.

He wishes he’d been the one to slit Makara’s throat for her. For both of them, really. To him it’d be just like killing game constructs, only numbers and codes with no soul behind them. Afterward, Dave would sleep like a baby. 

“We’re bros,” he asks her, “so do you want the bro talk?”

Terezi puts a hand to her chest. “Bros? Why, Dave, you scoundrel! I thought you were in the bro quadrant with Karkat! Am I the other bro?”

“Shit, I’m polybro. Don’t put me in a box, I will not be contained. I’m multi-bro and if you tell me otherwise, I’ll narc on you to Kankri. TW, anti-broism.”

“Bluh,” Terezi interrupts. “Leave Mr. Cherry Sanctimony out of this. Now I taste wool sweater. Give me delicious wisdom to get the taste out of my mouth.”

“You’re the same person you were before,” Dave says. “I mean, okay, you got hurt. You did some stupid shit. But everybody gets hurt and everybody does stupid shit. You’re still awesome and terrifying. All right, that sounds pretty weak now that I said it out loud, but… you’re cool. You’re a mighty troll bitch. Fuck Gamzee, he was terrible and had bad taste in music. He didn’t know you.”

She turns his way. The whites of her eyes are red, broken only by pinpricks of black. “Do I terrify you?”

“Fuck yes. Do I look stupid to you?”

“Very much.” Patting his thigh, Terezi says, “Don’t worry, I’ll terrify everyone else so that I can keep you safe in my lair. Like you are a baby quackbeast! There will be no more dead Daves on my watch. I probably won’t even maim you.”

“Thanks. Brofist?”

She sniffs deeply, raises her fist, and they bump.

“Are you going to stay here?” Terezi says, after he’s drawn most of a SBaHJ comic between her wrist and elbow. 

“Hell yeah. Can Town alumni represent, gonna hang on this roof till you make me pay rent. Huh, this orange clashes with your shirt.”

“Rent,” she muses, then grabs him by the front of the shirt. Dave knows the ink is smearing off on him and he’ll never get the stain out, and he doesn’t care, because she kisses him. It’s just as much like licking a harvest thresher as ever. If he was a good person, he wouldn’t kiss her back, but then she wouldn’t have kissed him in the first place. 

When she lets him go, the tracks of teal on her face are so smudged that he knows he’s wearing that too. 

“Am I your rebound?” he asks. “Because I’m not sure I’m down for that.”

“Dave,” she says solemnly, “you are my forever girl.”

Dave snerks, and takes her hand. She grabs him so tight that his knuckles pop and doesn't apologize. 

Together they wait for her to go blind.


End file.
